1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk driver cage assembly for receiving a variety of computer disk drivers, and particularly to a disk driver cage assembly with a releasable/locking means for releasably and securely orienting the rail-mounted disk drivers stalled in the disk driver cage assembly.
2. The Prior Art
Computer disk driver cage is generally defined with a plurality of bays for receiving different type disk drivers, e.g. a 3.5" float disk driver and/or a CD-ROM disk driver, each which is designed with two opposed and spaced guiding rails on opposite lateral walls thereof. The guiding rails of each bay are capable of respectively cooperating with two plastic rail strips disposed by screws on two opposite sides of a corresponding disk driver to guide the disk driver to enter the bay of the disk driver cage. Then the inserted disk driver is further efficiently retained within the bay by the other screws for avoiding undesirable vibration. However, the use of screws for retaining/releasing the disk driver is inconvenient and wastes time. Based on the problem, a number of disk driver cage manufacturers design some additional mechanisms to be disposed with the disk driver cages and/or disk drivers to provide manual operation with convenience. Unfortunately, the structure of the additional mechanisms are too complicated and only appropriate for designated rail strips positioned on the disk drivers and/or designated guiding rails positioned on disk driver cages, rather than the common rail strips or guiding rails. Another type additional mechanisms based on the same reason, though, are assembled with the common disk driver cages, they only comply with specific size disk drivers. However, for accommodating different size disk drivers, it is still inconvenient that the additional mechanisms must be dismantled in advance for avoiding interference with the different size disk drivers. The other type, snap-in locking mechanism, must be manually compressed without interruption until the disk driver is fully inserted/released, and thus it is inconvenient either. Additionally, the foregoing disk driver cage assembly mostly lack accurate orientation function and complemental retention function with regard to the inserted disk drivers for the convenience that the screws are able to be accurately threaded between the disk driver and disk driver cage to achieve a sufficient retentive therebetween. The foregoing disk driver assembly disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,067,041, 5,098,175, 5,100,215, 5,112,119, 5,142,447, 5,227,954, 5,262,923, 5,319,519, 5,332,306, 5,488,538, 5,510,955, 5,557,499 and 5,563,767.
Accordingly, for resolving the above disadvantages, an object of the present invention is to provide a disk driver cage assembly with a locking means in comply with the common rail strips disposed on generic disk drivers, which does not interfere at all some adjacent components positioned in the disk driver cage/disk driver for providing users with convenience of assembly of the disk driver.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disk driver cage assembly with a locking means capable of movably staying in a latching/releasing position with the disk driver for providing users with the convenience of manual operation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disk driver cage assembly with a stop portion cooperating with the locking means to provide the inserted disk driver with orientation and retention function.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disk driver cage assembly with a bay cover cooperating with the locking means for isolating an available bay in the disk driver cage from the environment to prevent electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electrostatic discharge (ESD).